August 02, 2010

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced a diplomatic breakthrough Monday in persuading Israel and Turkey to agree on the formation of a UN panel to investigate the Gaza flotilla violence in May.

The UN Panel of Inquiry on the flotilla incident of 31 May will be comprised of four members, the UN chief said Monday. Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Geoffrey Palmer will serve as chair, and the outgoing President of Colombia Alvaro Uribe will serve as vice chair. The panel will also have a member each from Israel and Turkey.

“For the past two months, I have engaged in intensive consultation with the leaders of Israel and Turkey on the setting-up of a Panel of Inquiry on the flotilla incident of 31 May,” Ban Ki-Moon said in a statement Monday. “Today I am very pleased to announce the launch of the Panel. This is an unprecedented development.”

“I thank the leaders of the two countries with whom I have engaged in last minute consultations over the weekend, for their spirit of compromise and forward looking cooperation,” Ban Ki-Moon continued.

The formation of the panel marks a possible turning point in beginning to reduce tensions between Israel and Turkey that have been heightened since eight Turks and one Turkish American were killed in an Israeli operation to intercept the Gaza aid flotilla on May 31. Turkey has demanded that Israel apologize for the incident or agree to an international inquiry, or face a severing of diplomatic ties. Israel has argued that the Turkish charity behind the flotilla has terrorist ties and links to Turkey’s ruling AKP party and was meant to provoke an international incident.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice welcomed the announced agreement and said the United States hopes it will help Turkey and Israel ease recent tensions.

“The focus of the Panel is appropriately on the future and on preventing such incidents from recurring,” Rice said in a statement Monday. “The United States also hopes that the panel can serve as a vehicle to enable Israel and Turkey to move beyond the recent strains in their relationship and repair their strong historic ties.”

The panel will begin work August 10 and submit its first progress report by mid-September, the UN said.

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I'm afraid this will end up just being Goldstone II. After accusations of antisemitism and media witch-hunt against the panel members, Israel will neither admit any wrongdoing nor get any UN condemnation or sanction.

What a panel.., Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Geoffrey Palmer will serve as chair, and the outgoing President of Colombia Alvaro Uribe will serve as vice chair. The panel will also have a member each from Israel and Turkey. Above panel is more like an execution panel then a just panel.., I mean if you look at the Colombian Alvaro Uribe background and his Columbians mercenaries there is not much of different between IDF actions regarding Palestinians and them.., so the similarity in actions.., and considering the Chair and vice Chair of the panel will not make a fair judgment about the case.., in the other hand.., perhaps Turkey wants to have a political move before and after the panel vote which the foremost saying would be ”both sides are guilty”. Yet one needs to remember that Flotillas were attacked in international water before reaching its goal.., and no weapons of any kind were found.., one also needs to remember that Gaza is a prison camp made possible by Israel where the entire population is the hostage to Israel domestics and foreign demands when it comes to US and EU.

Javan wouldn't know fair from foul--- he would rather the panel be composed of Osama, Hassan, Goldstone, and the ghost of Yassir Arafat. Trot out a little "open air prison" smear while you're at it, along with some hot "aparteid" innuendo... that's some nice spice for just the right flavor and aroma from this smear...

Javan wouldn't know fair from foul--- he would rather the panel be composed of Osama, Hassan, Goldstone, and the ghost of Yassir Arafat. Trot out a little "open air prison" smear while you're at it, along with some hot "aparteid" innuendo... that's some nice spice for just the right flavor and aroma from this smear...

A hugely promising potential development. Arguably, Iran, Turkey, and Israel are, for American foreign policy, the three most important countries today in the ME. Turkey is increasingly the lynchpin. Repairing the Israeli-Turkish ties is a critical U.S. national interest. So this is welcome news indeed, for the ME, the UN, and the U.S.
Sarwar A. Kashmeri
Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
@Digvic

"The focus of the Panel is appropriately on the future ..." said Rice.
This "focus on the future, forget about the past" is getting to be a mantra of the Obama administration. Why deal with the harsh realities of the world when we can dream about a rosy future?
But part of the past which she's so eager to put behind her is the murder of an American citizen with two bullets to his head from Israeli commandos.

Turkey, which has higher values than the US, is standing up for its murdered citizens unlike the US under LBJ who covered up Israel's inexcusable slaughter of our sailors on the USS Liberty in 1967. After all these years documents are finally being released. LBJ was more concerned with Jewish campaign contributions than with supporting our troops. Israel knowingly attacked our US-flagged ship in international waters with rockets, torpedoes, napalm, cannon fire, close-range machine guns, etc, even blasting the life rafts being lowered so that none would survive. We never even sent help. The attack killed 34 US sailors and wounded 171. Israel’s aim was to prevent this intelligence-gathering ship from learning about Israel’s massacre of Egyptian POWs and Israel’s plan to preemptively invade Syria to grab the Golan Heights. As George Ball wrote regarding the USS Liberty, “Israel’s leaders concluded that nothing they might do would offend Americans to the point of reprisal.”

will 09:50 AM is correct, re. Israel knowingly attacking our ship the USS Liberty, and the Freedom of Information Act provided damning evidence. We now know that we were listening in to all messages between the Israeli military command headquarters and the Israeli pilots flying the Mirage Jets. One pilot was overheard ( before the first of the two waves of attack by Israel) as radioing back to headquarters "This is an American ship". Israeli headquarters then responded by warning the pilot to keep radio silence. ..................Also, according to the books "Attack on the Liberty", by James Scott and "Assault on the Liberty" by James M. Ennes Jr., LBJ and our Joint Chiefs of Staff (including John McCain's father Admiral McCain) consitered scuttling and sinking the USS Liberty ( barely afloat and limping back stateside) on purpose so as to cover up the damage done against us by Israel, and so our Main Stream Media people couldn't take pctures of it that would turn the American people against Israel.

Whereas the flotilla victims were shot execution-style by the Israelis, the USS Liberty seamen were subjected to prolonged torture, such as having to undergo major abdominal surgery while awake in the forlorn hope of stopping shrapnel-induced bleeding. The ship’s one doctor, although wounded, had to work in the trashed ship, with hardly any medical supplies, for 17 hours continuously until help belatedly arrived. The Israeli tornado, one of five fired, created a hole nearly 40 feet wide through which dead bodies emerged into the Mediterranean as the ship with its 9 degree list crawled to Malta. On board, the surviving sailors had to endure the stench of the decaying mangled bodies of their dead comrades floating below in the flooded sealed-off compartments. So much for helping those in peril on the sea.

will, you keep talking about the 60s. I'll talk about the marine barracks in Beirut, the first twin towers bombing,Khobar Towers, the african embassies, numerous assassinations of US citizens, the USS Cole and 9/11. And how many US members of the military would have died if Israel had not wiped the Iraqi nuclear plant off the face of the earth...
And since you care some much about the poor palestinians,why aren't YOU screaming about the poverty and squalor palestinians are forced to live in over 50 arab concentration camps throughout the arab world.Where;s your outrage about that you loser...

A small correction regarding the semantics of "...in persuading Israel and Turkey to agree on the formation of a UN panel..".
Ban Ki-Moon persuaded Israel to agree to a panel, not Israel and Turkey. Turkey listed the formation of an international panel as one of its key four demands since the day the massacre took place in international waters on May 31'st 2010. The other three demands are an official apology, reparations and lifting of the Gaza blockade.
I have to assume the spin attempt was done on purpose; otherwise, it would have looked pitifully misinformed.

Bevo: you bring up many different events. First, in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon hoping to set up a puppet government favorable to Israel and, of course, favorable to Israel's occupation of Palestine. The US and other nations were dragged into Lebanon, supposedly as peace-keepers. However, the US ended up participating in a civil war, firing shells at Muslim villages. Robert Fisk writes, "But the moment the Sixth Fleet opened fire to help Gemayel's forces, the Marines in Beirut would become participants in the civil war...would have aligned themselves with the Phalange in open war against the Muslims of Lebanon." ("Pity the Nation" p. 505) It was the Phalange which had massacred hundreds of helpless Palestinians trapped in refugee camps at Sabra and Chatila in 1982 as their sponsors, the Israeli troops, stood by and watched. It was then not surprising that our marines were attacked by suicide bombers in 1983.

Bevo: 9/11 was a revenge attack for our unconditional support of Israel's illegal occupations, persecutions, war crimes and other atrocities. In The 9/11 Commission Report,(page 147), it is stated that this is why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, (KSM), mastermind of 9/11, hates us: "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”
KSM's nephew was Ramzi Yousef, (whose mother was Palestinian), who had masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. James Bamford in his book A Pretext for War explains, "His goal was to punish the United States for its support of Israel." Yousef's terrorist cell left behind a letter which "made it very clear that they were planning to return to finish what they had started at the World Trade Center." James Bamford writes," "Thus, by early 1995, terrorists had attempted to bring down the World Trade Center, were planning to blow up airliners, and were exploring the possibility of turning passenger planes into weapons of mass destruction and crashing them into American buildings......It was equally clear that the reason for the attacks was the country's support for Israel and its occupation and treatment of the Palestinians."
Due to our support of Israel's illegal occupations the US has been targeted for years, as with the 1970's oil embargo. There is a May 1998 interview with bin Laden (shown on the PBS Frontline documentary "Hunting bin Laden") which took place in Afghanistan. Responding to questions from his followers as well as from ABC's John Miller, Bin Laden voiced objections to the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, saying they were there to support Jewish expansionism. Bin Laden stated, "For over half a century, Muslims in Palestine have been slaughtered and assaulted and robbed of their honor and of their property. Their houses have been blasted, their crops destroyed." "The leaders in America and in other countries have fallen victim to Jewish Zionist blackmail. They have mobilized their people against Islam and against Muslims." "Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame...We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans." "The American government is leading the country towards hell...We say to the Americans as people and to American mothers, if they cherish their lives and if they cherish their sons, they must elect an American patriotic government that caters to their interests not the interests of the Jews."
Also in an October 2004 tape, Bin Laden stated, "Unlike what Bush says that we hate freedom, let him tell us why didn't we attack Sweden, for example." Bin Laden said that he decided to attack the US towers while observing the 1983 Israeli bombing of towers in Beirut which symbolized the "injustice and inflexibility of the American/Israeli alliance towards his people in Palestine and Lebanon."

Bevo: You bring up Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein had been a ruthless dictator, but he had been our ruthless dictator. We supported him in his invasion of Iran and provided battlefield intelligence, satellite imagery, advisers, etc. A 1994 report by the US Senate Banking Committee showed that the US government approved shipments to Iraq of materials which could be used for WMD. (See Robert Fisk’ book "The Great War For Civilisation" pp. 211-212) Even knowing that he was gassing his enemies, we continued diplomatic ties. Fisk notes, "Iraq was already using gas to kill thousands of Iranian soldiers when Donald Rumsfeld made his notorious 1983 visit to Baghdad to shake Saddam's hand and ask him for permission to reopen the US embassy."(p. 166) Before his invasion of Kuwait, our ambassador April Glaspie reportedly told Saddam that this issue was an "Iraqi-Kuwaiti matter."(See Fisk p. 589) In other words, we did not warn Saddam adequately of the dire consequences or explain that this was different from the previous invasion which we backed.
Saddam Hussein had long been a strong supporter of the Palestinians. He provided money to those whose homes were bombed or bulldozed by Israel in retaliation after a member of the extended family had become a suicide bomber (often unknown to the family members). Once in Kuwait, Saddam offered to end his occupation of Kuwait if Israel would end its occupation of Palestine. (See Fisk, p.590)
It's too bad that didn't happen since it's nuclear-armed Israel with its illegal ccupations which is the root cause of our problems.

Bevo, you complain about the condition of the Palestinian refugees.You should take a look at Gaza, Israel's concentration camp. If Israel hadn't ethnically cleansed them off the land where (shown by genetic studies) they'd lived since pre-Biblical times they wouldn't be refugees.

those poor innocent arabs.You manage to come up with an excuse for them for everything.What about Lebanon a couple of years ago.Let me guess...Israel started that,right.Ethnic cleansing? There are Israeli arabs in the Knesset.Arabs have more rights in Israel than any arab country.What kind of ethnic cleansing is that? Jewish expansionism? You make me laugh. If Israel wanted to expand, they could take over the entire middle east.9/11? Interesting that in bin laden's "speech" he talked about the US as the great satan and then,as an afterthought. mentioned,oh yeah, we hate the little satan,Israel.I'll ask again, since no where in your saddam ramblings did you answer the question...Did the Israeli air force potentially save American lives by destroying the nuclear plant.And finally, your point about the concentration camps is laughable. As bad as gaza may be, an Egyptian wrote just last week about a LUXURY shopping mall just built.Egypt also blockades Gaza. And 2 weeks ago,the PA shut off 25% of all of gaza's electricity because hamas hadn't paid their bills.And yet, the utility plants in Israel kept the electricity flowing there.And those palestinians in those concentration camps in ARAB countries have been forced to live their for decades.Why haven't Egypt,Jordan,Lebanon,Saudi and the other countries allowed them to assimilate into their countries rather than keeping them in those camps.

Since your initial post was about the Liberty and Israel's supposed intentional attack, I find it interesting but not surprising that with 20 years of improved technology,in 1988 the US shot down an Iranian Airbus 300 with almost 300 innocent civilians aboard claiming that they thought it was a fighter and despite another 20+ years of further improved technology, the US still kills more innocent afgan civilians in drone attacks each week than died in the Liberty. Yet, Im sure that those actually are/were accidental.Blame Israel for that.BTW, for every document that you can find about the Liberty, I can find an equal number of military and congressional hearings that say that the attack was a mistake.

bevo: Incidents occur all the time along the Israel/Lebanon border and Israel loves to use them as an excuse to trash the country and kill a thousand people. Israel has traditionally used border clashes as an excuse to grab land. It's important to remember that it is after all Israel which is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and international law with its illegal occupations of Palestine and parts of Syria and Lebanon. And Gaza is a prison since the people there are not free to come and go. The Palestinian refugees were ethnically cleansed out of their homeland, and those who remained are second class citizens in the Jewish state. Bin Laden did not mention Israel as an afterthought. The interview I quoted was from 1998. Regarding war with Iraq, it was the Israel Lobby neocons who lied us into this war to benefit Israel. So Israel has cost American troops' lives, not saved them. Saddam was no threat to us whether he had WMD or not and neither is Iran. The Israel Lobby neocons are now trying to lie us into war with Iran, also to benefit Israel. The Israel Lobby neocons love civil wars in Muslim countries including Palestine and once Hamas won the election, Fatah was armed so as to bring about a civil war. Regarding refugees, such people always want to go home which is their right. Naturally the Israeli ethnic cleansers want them to go live somewhere else so they can grab their land, water resources, tourist trade, etc. Regarding the USS Liberty, read the books mentioned above at 2:09 PM 8/3, and you will see there was a massive cover-up. The well-marked ship, clearly flying the American flag, was attacked in international waters, and the attack went on a long time. It was a deliberate attack whose purpose was to leave no survivors. There was also a very good motive mentioned above.

It is amusing to see the verbose, rambling rantings of those whose entire, sad lives are structured around their hatred of Jews and Israel. It was quite hilarious to see James Bamford, a hopeless Israel-hater, have his clock cleaned, and entirely dismantled, by Michael Oren at a panel discussion on the USS Liberty that was shown on C-SPAN some time ago. I recommend that Oren's scholarly book on the Six-Day War be examined, and that the C-SPAN clip be viewed. Bamford was intellectually no match for Oren - it looked like shooting fish in a barrel. LOL.

A fellow Jew hater might eat your words up but my 14 year old nephew sees right through them.You keep regurgitating the same crap. If you want to believe that, go for it. You want to hate Israel, good for you. Answer the question...who started the war in Lebanon a couple of summers ago.It was hezbollah.You keep whining about Gaza? Why didn't Egypt take gaza back with the sinai when Israel gave that land back.Its because they don't want gaza. Gaza is nothing more than a political pawn for the arabs.They could care less about them.Israel collects millions in taxes for the PA because they can't do it themselves.The IDF left greenhouses for the palestinians after they left unilaterally and what happened. Instead of using them to grow fruits and vegetables, the palestinians trahed them.Good job. Luxury mall,Dubai is jealous.Israel leaves gaza and hamas and fatah kill each other and murder little palestinian kids as they walk to school but its all Israel's fault.Ethnically cleansed? Right, thats why there are Israeli arabs that are part oif the Knesset.Thats why Israeli arabs can own property and have rights that they would not have in arab countries. The fact that you keep regurgiting the same stuff doesn't make it true anywhere outside of your mind. You quoted bin laden from 98, I from right after 9/11.War in Iraq. I learned something. Bill,Hillary and Kerry are now members of the Israel lobby as is the CIA, British intelligence,Egyptian intelligence,Jordanian intelligence,French intelligence, Saudi intelligence German intelligence and no telling what other intelligence agencies. Palestinians want to go home? Most of them have been in the concentration camps so long that the state of Israel already existed BEFORE they were born.There are 20+ arab countries and none of those countries want them.Not a word about the Iranian jetliner or the drone attacks.All that you do is regurgitate the same stuff because you can't respond to my questions. You want to hate Jews, go for it.You want to hate Israel,good for you.

Your disjointed ramblings avoid the key point which is that Israel is in violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions because of its illegal occupation of Palestine, plus parts of Syria and parts of Lebanon. You probably are hiding that crucial fact from your 14 year old nephew. Palestine was partitioned by the UN into a Jewish state and an Arab state but the Jews have hogged the whole thing. This is why 57 states do not recognize Israel. It's also why occupation-resistance groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah exist. Why should Egypt take Gaza when it is supposed to be part of the Arab Palestinian state along with the West Bank. It's obvious you know you're losing the argument because you have relapsed into the absurd "Jew-hater" gimmick.

From an earlier post: "Palestine was partitioned by the UN into a Jewish state and an Arab state but the Jews have hogged the whole thing. This is why 57 states do not recognize Israel. It's also why occupation-resistance groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah exist."
Oops. The person who typed that is evidently an obsessive antisemite. He forgot to mention that anti-Israel terror groups existed PRIOR to the 6-day war.

How do you come up with this stuff.Israel hogged everything. Israel's the size of New Jersey. Maybe they should have hogged half of Saudi Arabia and Jordan and much of the oil reserves..No, the arab countries told the people living in the partioned area to leave because in a matter of days,they would destroy Israel and they could come back. Didn't exactly work out and now they whine ad naseum. I could care less whether 57 or 107 countries don't recognize Israel,thats irrelevant.Its called jealousy.Israel takes nothing but desert with very little resources and turns that land into an economic powerhouse. The arab countries with all the oil in the world can;t scratch their butt without foreign guidance. Of course they hate Israel.Egypt should have taken gaza decades ago if they cared as much about the palestinians as you claim but instead they blockade gaza just like Israel.Why no outrage from you.And yet, the only thing thats obvious is that you can't answer any questions because it doesn't fit into your I hate Israel mantra.And maybe you can answer why arafat didn't take 97% of the west bank, 3% of Israel, east jerusalem as the palestinian capital and negotiated water rights as agreed by both Israeli and palestinian negotiators and instead turned it down. And then he started the intifada. The palestinian people are idiots because they keep believing the crap that there leaders tell them.Arafat did a great job...stealing over a billion dollars of aid and not a peep from you. As I said before, hate Israel all that you want because Israel will continue to be a thriving world power long after you're gone. And when palestinian mothers love their children more than they hate Israel,thats when there will be peace and not a moment sooner.Everything else is irrelevant.

bevo, the offer you claim was made to Arafat is a myth. A favorite talking point of the Israel Lobby is the lie that "inflexible" Palestinian President Yassir Arafat "chose war over peace" by rejecting Israel's "generous offer" at Camp David in July 2000. The truth is the exact opposite. It is the inflexible Israelis who continually choose war over peace as they greedily build settlements on stolen Palestinian land in disregard of UN Resolution 242. The UN 1947 Partition Plan, divided historic Palestine into roughly equal Jewish and Arab states with Jerusalem, holy to three religions, left as an international zone. Then after the 1967 war, Israel occupied all of Palestine.
UN Resolution 242 called for Israel to withdraw from occupied territories "emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" in accordance with the UN Charter. Israel believes that it is the exception and that it is admissible for Israel to acquire territory by war as long as settlements are built on it. In contrast, it was Arafat who was flexible and generous in accepting UN Resolution 242 in 1988 as it only allots 22% of historic Palestine to the native Palestinian Arabs. Israel, however, wants more than 78% as shown in the Camp David negotiations.
In July 2000, President Clinton brought Palestinian President Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Barak to Camp David for peace negotiations, but Arafat was not offered a fair deal in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242 which calls on Israel to withdraw from occupied territory including occupied Arab East Jerusalem. As reported in Clayton Swisher's book The Truth About Camp David (p.327), Arafat said "If anyone imagines that I might sign away Jerusalem, he is mistaken. I am not only the leader of the Palestinian people; I am also the vice president of the Islamic Conference." "I am only asking that UN Resolution 242 be implemented. I am speaking only about 22 percent of Palestine, Mr President." "Do you want to come to my funeral? I would rather die than agree to Israeli sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif."
Arafat was tricked into attending the Camp David summit since Israel and the pro-Israeli-biased US team had no intention of making him a just offer. As is well-documented in Clayton E. Swisher's book "The Truth About Camp David," President Clinton falsely promised Arafat he would not be blamed if the summit failed (p.226). Then Clinton tried to browbeat Arafat into accepting an unjust offer consisting of less land than that to which Palestinians were legally entitled,inadequate control or sovereignty over Arab East Jerusalem and Islamic holy sites, lack of solution to the refugee situation, etc. Arafat heroically stood for justice and refused. Furthermore, Arafat pleaded with Israeli Prime Minister Barak to prevent Ariel Sharon from parading himself around the Islamic holy sites showing off Israeli sovereignty, since that was sure to provoke violence. (See Swisher, p. 380) Yet Sharon was allowed to strut up to the holy sites and the second intifada was born. Arafat was then blamed for "choosing war over peace," an outcome pleasing to the Israel Lobby. Meanwhile President Clinton was madly pursuing Jewish votes and money for his wife's senate campaign. (Swisher, p. 361) It is important to remember that Arafat accepted the 2002 Saudi (Arab League) Peace Plan, whereas Israel still steadfastly rejects it.

Poster at 8:39 neglects to mention that Israel was actually born out of terrorism. Notorious Jewish terror groups such as the Irgun and the Stern Gang attacked the British as well as the native Palestinians who had lived there for thousands of years. In 1946 the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 91. The Stern Gang assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish UN mediator, in 1948. The Irgun and the Stern Gang played major roles in the 1948 terrorist ethnic cleansing of Arab civilians, as is well-documented, village-by-village, in the book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. In 1917 British Foreign Secretary Arthur J. Balfour had declared that Britain supported the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine. At that time there were 56,000 Jews and 600,000 Arabs living in Palestine. (See Avi Shlaim's book The Iron Wall). The Balfour Declaration emphasized, "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." However Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion had other ideas. By 1947 Jews only owned 5.8% of the land in Palestine. Greedy for more, Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion and ten others established an ethnic cleansing cabal, known as the Consultancy, which devised a "Plan Dalet" in March 1948 to systematically eliminate the Palestinian Arabs through terrorism, mass murder, and expulsion. (Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine) The Jewish terrorist groups played a major role in this plan which involved bombarding Arab villages and villagers, burning and demolishing homes, planting mines, carrying out massacres, mass murder of innocent civilians, torture, throwing bombs into crowds, shooting villagers in their beds at night, blowing up inhabited houses at night, destroying crops, olive groves, citrus groves, etc. The idea was not only to terrorize the population but also to incite a desire for retaliation so as to provide an excuse for even greater violence in a situation characterized by a huge mismatch of power. They were highly successful, killing thousands and creating 800,000 Arab refugees in the first six months alone. This included the massacre of the Arab village of Deir Yassin in which thirty babies were slaughtered while their mothers were raped and killed, along with many others. The massacre was proudly advertised by the Jewish leadership in order to sow terror and induce other Arabs to flee. The leader of the Stern Gang was future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin commanded the Irgun.

will, the agreement was such a myth that one of the palestinian negotiators for that agreement was on a radio interview that I heard with my own ears and what I said comes directly from him. I anxiously await how he was a member of the Israel lobby. Another interesting thing.Every time you try to make a point,you have to use outdated info.You have to go back to the 60s, 1988 or the bombing of the King David Hotel.What you conveniently forgot to mention about the King David Hotel is that the part of the hotel that was bombed was a military installation and that notice was given in 2 newspapers the night before warning the British to stay away.The reason there were any casualties is because the british commander refused to evacuate the hotel.Be that as it may, thats how far you have to go back in history.Israel did many things that no one is proud of but I just have to go back a few days to point out that hamas rockets killed an innocent jordanian man earlier this week.Or a failed suicide bombing attempt. In your world, Israel =100% bad and arabs =100% good. That must be a very lonely place to be. Im through with this thread. I have better things Again, believe what you want.Its irrelevant to me.

Bevo, there really is no point in arguing with truly demented fanatics whose entire life purpose is inextricably bound up with their deep, abiding hatred of Jews and Israel. They spend all their time thinking about ONE THING. LOL. It is what gives their
lives such meaning as is there for them, and they are not going to change - they are literally fanatics. One might as well argue with a deranged bum on a downtown street corner holding a paper bag containing cheap booze who is railing against imaginary demons.
Far better to simply point out to the NON-demented, regular folks, that all of the spurious claims, false arguments, biased opinions, sheer speculations and outright lies
incessantly regurgitated by these sick and evil people are actually quite easily refutable. (They love to quote their sources, and they absurdly claim that they are "serious" sources, such as "renowned so and so." A favorite tactic for these pathetic nutjobs, used in a transparent ploy to deflect the obvious fact that they hate Jews, is their frequent reliance on extreme-leftist Israeli or extreme-leftist Jewish sources. This is like quoting Quisling and referring to him as a "renowned Norwegian politician." LOL. As for their non-Jewish-authored sources, for every one supporting the hatred of the
nutcase posters, there is at least one source supporting the truth.) It is VERY easy to find sources of all types, and these sick posters, not being actual scholars, but merely
fanatical internet cut-and-pasters, are unaware of the existence of volumes and volumes of sources written by actual scholars that fully debunk their insane Jew-hatred. In fact, it is easy to quote proper sources that dismantle their abject nuttiness of the demented, fanatic posters. Case in point: the canard regarding the tragic accident involving the USS Liberty has been fully dealt with in a number of documents, such as the scholarly book on the Six-Day War written by Michael Oren, who, incidentally, as pointed out by another poster, intellectually demolished James Bamford, utterly, in a debate showed on C-SPAN a few years ago. Bamford is an inveterate hater of Israel, and it was breathtaking, as well as quite fun, to see the hapless Bamford's "case" reduced to stammering speculation, baseless opinion, and, ultimately, sputtering, mindless hatred. It would be instructive to find this clip - perhaps it is posted on C-SPAN's site. The Oren book is widely available. One other thing, Bevo - it doesn't matter what these Jew-hating nuts say or write: it is a
wet dream of theirs that they will one day be in power (by the way, it is probably LITERALLY a wet dream of theirs - they have no other life - LOL). The good news is that
these nuts have NO power and never will in the USA: Congress is going to be lost by the dems in November, as a result of which Obama will be forced by politics to adopt a more pro-Israel stance. It is also highly likely that Obama will be a one-term president. There is nothing the Jew-hating kooks can do to reverse the anti-Obama feeling sweeping the US. Jew-hatred is an ancient scourge, Bevo, and its presence on the internet is a sad reminder of the need for eternal vigilance.

Israel apologists have been referring to Israeli ambassador Oren (who served in the IDF) without specifically stating how he supposedly won a debate on the USS Liberty massacre. Even LBJ said the attack was deliberate. The Israelis wanted to stop our eavesdropping. The Israelis lied, but that's not unusual. James Scott in his 2009 book The Attack on the Liberty, points out that Iowa Republican Senator Hickenlooper speaking of the Israeli covert nukes program said the Israelis lie like horse thieves.

Hickenlooper said Israelis lie? That's a scholarly contribution? Scraping the bottom of the antisemite barrel. Hickenlooper was a racist who voted against the Civil Rights Act. Great "source" LOL. My cab driver says YOU lie. LOL. There is no documented evidence, neither in the Scott book nor anywhere else, regarding what LBJ is claimed to have said, just hearsay from a reporter. LOL Read a credible source, such as Dr. Michael Oren's scholarly account. Grizzled old antisemites are funny to watch as they squirm.

dybbuk: The fact is that the Israelis lied. The USS Liberty had every right to be in international waters. It was a clear day with wind which made the flag fly out, and Israeli planes flew around looking at it for several hours before the attack. The ship's markings were freshly painted and easily visible. The jet attacks and tornado boat attacks were coordinated and clearly designed to sink the ship with no survivors. The Israelis had a lot to hide as they did not want the world to know they were the aggressors in the Six-Day land-grabbing war. After invading Egypt they were pretending to make peace while they were secretly planning to invade Syria. They were mass-murdering Egyptian POWs. They delayed their Syrian invasion plans one day to polish off the Liberty. Israel still doesn't like people observing their atrocities: note how they banned journalist access to Gaza during their slaughter there. Israel lied and said the attack was an accident, but the truth has come out.